A lot has been written and discussed, upon and about the above topic and issue, but also a lot has neithert been extensively revealed or said about eough. To our experience and understanding, the PDFJ’s regime of Ato Isaias Afwerki, is oppressing the Tigrians too, but in a “discriminate” manner, unlike the Kunama and other non-Tigrian Eritrean nationalities, who are oppressed “indiscriminately”.
By “discriminate oppression”, we mean that the regime targets and oppresses only those “Eritrean-Tigrians” who either oppose it or do refuse to go along with it and fulfil its political and financial demands and requirements. It is instead “oppressing” the Kunama for simply “being Kunama” and occupying a vast and fertile native and ancestral land.
The “oppressions” we are talking about, are therefore:
1.- political,
2- culturo-linguistic,
3.- territorial and
4.- economic.
a).- Politically, as it has always been, today too, the centre of the Eritrean “politics”, is the highland “Kebesa” region, with “Asmara” as its capital, and the Eritrean-Tigrian-ethnic component, as the major, if not the only player and holder of that political monopoly.
According to the honest statement of an erudite and objective Eritrean-Tigrian ethnic-member:
“lomi iti mengsti ab idna iu zello, gn hmach ina nkkaido zellona”,
(today the government/politics, is on our hands, but we are conducting it badly).
This is not a new message, either to us Kunama or to other non-Tigrian Eritreans, but a “de-facto” reality, we have been experiencing and being aware of, all along, and therefore, it was only an issue substantiated by that objectively viewing Eritrean-Tigrian personality.
Translated into a symbolic language and also into practical terms:
if the centre of the Eritrean political gravity lies in “Kebesa/Asmara”, all the political decisions and implementations, conducted in all Eritrean regions, and in the whole of Eritrea, do incline, are attracted to or indeed fall into that centre or force. This is not only a physical, but also a political principle.
How many honest Tigrians would contest that today, starting at the top-echelon, of the present PFDJ regime, made-up of:
Ato Isaias Afwerki,
Ato Hagos Gebrehiwet (Kashsha);
Ato Yemane Gebremeskel,
Ato Yemane Gebremariam, together with their four generals , ruling over the entire Eritrean nation, is not exclusively an “Eritrean-Tigrian ethnic-component”, and therefore that “iti mengsti ab idom iu?”
(The government/politics/ rule is on their hands).
It takes only honest people to admit and state the obvious!
b).- Culturo-linguistically, today, a Kunama looking and applying for a job or asking to be promoted in whatever post he/she occupies, and this in his/her own native and ancestral Kunama homeland, he/she is required to have a good command of and be fluent in the Tigrigngna language, which obviously implies that, that Kunama person must have assimilated the whole of the Tigrigngna culturo-linguistic package, in order to be eligible.
Why, we ask, should a Kunama be forced into spoiling him/herself or dropping his/her own Kunama “culturo-linguistic” values, and turn into a “Tigrian” person, just to get a job, which is, and should be, a legitimate right; or be promoted to a higher post, which would be simply a normal up-grading of a person’s qualifications, or rewarding of his/her working-performance?
The answer is: it is due to and because of “culturo-linguistic oppression”.
c).- Territorially, today, the “Eritrean-Tigrian ethnic-component” is reported to be present, roaming and operating, even forcefully, not only in the entire Kunama homeland, but in all homelands, towns, villages and countrysides of every “non-Eritrean-Tigrian” Eritrean-nationality.
The vice-versa, and that is, the highland “Kebesa” regions of “Akele-Guzai, Hamasien” and “Serae” are exclusively inhabited by their own, not only Eritrean-Tigrian ethnic-members, but very predominantly, by the respective Tigrian natives of those homelands. Is this not an obvious contradiction?
If the excuse that many “Tigrians” are often presenting, that because of their numerical majority, they are in need more land to settle, this would be a matter of due consideration, but the apparently forced resettlement of the Tigrians in other natives’ homelands, particularly, in the Eritrean western regions, specifically, in the Kunama homeland, often ejecting the Kunama people from their own century-old villages, crop-fields, grazing-lands and countryside,, in order to make room for the involuntary, as well as for the voluntary settlers, is simply a “territorial domination/oppression”.
d).- Economically, today, there is no denying, that the Eritrean economy is primarily in the hands of the PFDJ’s regime of Ato Isaias Afwerki, which means, it is in the hands of the “Eritrean-Tigrian mengsti” (rule).
Being present in the whole of Eritrea, having the ramifications of that “political domination”, enjoying “culturo-linguistic” advantages and roaming in every, town, village and countryside of the homelands of all Eritrean nationalities, the “Eritrean-Tigrian ethnic-components”, have also a very heavy hands in the economy of every homeland, they have settled in and are operating. It is enough to follow the market days, which are typically of the Eritrean-Tigrians tradition, today established, also in the Kunama homeland, and see exclusively the Eritrean-Tigrians commuting from one Kunama town to another, from one Kunama village to another and from one Kunama countryside-market to another, trading their goods, which are often not those produced locally, but imported either from their own “Kebesa” regions, or even black-marketed from the neighbouring Ethiopia and The Sudan. The PFDJ regime local authorities too are reported to heavily involved in the trading business, conducted in many Eritrean regions.
This suffice to prove the economic “dominance/oppression”, the PFDJ’s regime of Ato Isaias Afwerki and of his supporting Eritrean-Tigrian ethnic-component are exercising in the whole of Eritrea.
Whoever is still holding the idea that the PFDJ’s regime is “oppressing”, the Kunama and other non-Tigrian Eritreans, in the same manner or “equally” also the “Eritrean-Tigrians”, has to raise enough arguments to counter the above ones, in order to convince us.
In conclusion, it has to be reiterated that, the domination, oppression and the injustices, being committed and exercised, by the present PFDJ’s regime of Ato Isaias Afwerki, upon the Eritrean various nationalities, do differ, not only in quantity, quality and intensity, but also in aims and objectives.
The KABIT: (January 10, 2012).